February 2011 Archive

Exactly two weeks after Chuck Lorre’s now infamous “If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I’m gonna be really pissed” vanity card at the end of the final (for now) episode of Two and Half Men, which triggered Sheen’s vicious attacks against him, the Men co-creator weighed in on Sheen’s assaults (sort of) in his latest vanity card. The card, which aired tonight at the end of Lorre’s newest series, CBS comedy Mike & Molly, is in the rambling, stream-of-consciousness style of most… Read

ABC’s comedy comedy pilot has found the leads for its comedy pilot My Freakin’ Family: Ellen Woglom and Ravi Patel. Christopher Rich also has been cast in the project, which centers on two young parents, Anna (Woglom) and Raj (Patel), whose lives change after they have a baby and the four grandparents with very different cultural backgrounds descend upon their lives to fight for the soul of their grandchild. Rich will play Anna’s dad, an affable suburban cowboy… Read

UK press over here are gushing that The King's Speech quadruple Oscar major wins – Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay — will be a boost for the British film industry. But I would say it's all downhill from here. Consider the evidence. Beginning next April, there will be no UK Film Council coordinating British Film plc. Tanya Seghatchian, head of the UK Film Council film fund — which invested just over £1 million in The King's Speech — says… Read

At the post-Oscar bash held by The Weinstein Company and at the Vanity Fair party, it became clear that Harvey Weinstein might well have opportunities to capitalize on the momentum created by The King’s Speech. I ran into Quentin Tarantino, who said that he has completed the script for his Western, and that compared to recent scripts like Inglourious Basterds and Kill Bill that took so long to crystallize, this one came together much quicker and just flowed out of him. He… Read

ABC made the announcement tonight about the 11 so-called celebrities heading to the dance floor this season via Dancing With The Stars hosts Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke in a live press conference during The Bachelor. And it really looks as if the network scraped the bottom of the celebrity barrel. Many of those booked aren’t even household names. (Heck, I have no idea who most of them are!) They’re a boxer, a talk-show somebody, a Super Bowl Steeler, one of Playboy… Read

The statuesque actress/singer has died of respiratory failure. She was 89. Discovered by Howard Hughes for his 1940s film Outlaw, Russell graduated from WWII pinup to become an accomplished comedienne in films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the Howard Hawks film that paired her with upstart Marilyn…Read

EXCLUSIVE: Former My Name Is Earl co-starJaime Pressly has been tapped as the lead opposite Katie Finneran in Fox’s multicamera comedy pilotI Hate My Teenage Daughter. The project, from Warner Bros. TV and writers/executive producers Sherry Bilsing-Graham and Ellen Kreamer, centers on two women, Annie (Pressly) and Nikki (Finneran), who now have daughters just like the girls who picked on them in high school. Pressly, repped by CAA and Luber/Roklin, won an Emmy for her… Read

While its war with Two and a Half Menstar Charlie Sheen is raging, Warner Bros. TV just made peace with the show’s crew. Sources confirm that the studio has agreed to pay the about 200 core crew members their full salaries for the four episodes of Men that were scheduled to begin production today. According to TMZ, which broke the news of the payoff, the checks for the crew amount to about $2 million in total. Additionally, the timing of the work stoppage on Men is… Read

Ray Drecker is getting new love and some competition. Stephen Amell(Vampire Diaries) has been cast in a recurring role on the upcoming third season of HBO’s comedy series Hung. He will play Jason, a rival gigolo of Ray Drecker (Thomas Jane) who is described as super sexy with a good physique and possessing a sweetness to him that makes him very charismatic. Amell, who just signed on to star as Joran van der Sloot in the Lifetime movie Justice for Natalee, is with SMS and… Read

Before I focus on last night’s 83rd Academy Award winners, let me describe my conversations with the "losers", only some of whom seemed to take the news in stride. Clearly,The Social Network filmmakers were licking their wounds. To the point that hands-on producer Scott Rudin didn’t even make the trip west for the awards. Clearly, they think they were robbed. In fact, as I traversed the Grand Ballroom of the Governor’s Ball, I kept hearing that precise phrase — "You were… Read

EXCLUSIVE: Without a Trace co-star Poppy Montgomery is returning to CBS as the star of the network’s untitled Ed Redlich/John Bellucci pilot. The project, which will be directed by The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo helmer Niels Arden Oplev, centers on a female NYPD detective (Montgomery) who possesses the special ability to remember everything and, although a gift in her job, it's also a curse in her personal life. In addition to CBS, the pilot reunites Montgomery… Read

Here is the latest hourly Charlie Sheen update: the troubled actor is following on his repeated threats that he would sue Two and a Half Menproducer Warner Bros. TV and network CBS.
Warner Bros. TV confirmed a TMZ report that top litigator Marty Singer has sent a letter to the studio demanding that Sheen is paid in full for the 8 unproduced episodes of the show’s current eighth season. Sheen retained Singer a couple of months ago in an effort to prevent Warner Bros. and… Read